The present disclosure relates to grab bars used by persons to assist standing or walking. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to wall-mounted patient egress and assist bars that are used in healthcare facilities and that are gripped by persons getting into or out of bed and/or moving from one part of a room to another.
Patients in healthcare facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes oftentimes have difficulty getting into and out of their beds. In addition, when some patients that have difficulty standing or walking need to use a bathroom, for example, a caregiver is beckoned by the patient using a nurse call button located on their beds or on a hand held unit that is coupled to a nurse call system. The caregiver then comes to the room and assists the patient from their bed to the bathroom and then, a short time later, from the bathroom back to their beds.
Sometimes a stationary grab bar is attached to the wall adjacent to the patient's bed. However, a spatial gap oftentimes exists between the egress point of the patient's bed and the point at which a patient can reach the stationary wall-mounted grab bar. Accordingly, there is a need for improved grab bar devices used in healthcare facilities to assist patients getting into and out of their beds and, optionally, in assisting patients from moving from one location of a room to another. For example, a grab bar that assists a patient from moving from their beds to a bathroom may reduce the number of nurse calls that caregivers receive, thereby freeing up caregiver time to attend to potentially more urgent healthcare needs of their patients.